In the prior art, an inkjet printer using a contact chip generally uses a detachable ink cartridge matched with the inkjet printer. Such detachable ink cartridge generally has contacts disposed at bottom or side walls and corresponding to chip contacts disposed at the print head and has a data storage apparatus. The detachable ink cartridge is discarded after use. In order to prevent poor contact or unintended disconnection between the contacts on the detachable ink cartridge and the contacts on the print head, contacts on chip circuit of the detachable ink cartridge are generally arranged to be symmetric to the center of the horizontal oscillation of the ink cartridge in the prior art, so as to minimize displacement of contacts relative to a centerline of the ink supply port, and ultimately prevent the chip from being out of contact. At the same time, in order to prevent poor contact of the chip, a method of disposing or coating a conductive material with good conductivity on the chip contacts is widely adopted in the prior art.
In the above prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,917 relates to typical disposing locations of chip contacts, the ink cartridge claimed in this patent and the circuit board containing chip contacts are not separable, and the ink cartridge with the chip contacts is discarded after use with a large amount of ink remaining therein. Because a position relation of the chip contacts and a centerline of an ink supply port must be satisfied, integral injection molding of the ink cartridge and installation of the chip need to maintain high accuracy in this patent. At the same time, in order to ensure firmness of chip positioning, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,008,053, an elastic handle is further proposed. The elastic handle is disposed on a sidewall of an ink cartridge opposite to a chip, and the chip is even disposed on a protruding orientation apparatus.
In order to prevent the chip from being damaged when the whole ink cartridge where the chip is located drops down or is impacted, a protruding protection apparatus is further used in U.S. Pat. No. 6,550,902, that is, an overhanging member is disposed above a circuit where a chip is located. Such the overhanging member is also used in a circuit board where the ink cartridge is located previously. However, a protection effect of the overhanging member is very limited, when the whole ink cartridge drops down, even if a surface of the ink cartridge where the circuit board is located is not directly impacted or collided, an impact stress is large enough to damage a chip or a circuit inside the chip with very low intensity, leaving the whole ink cartridge useless.
The inventor of the present invention noted that the chip and the memory used in the prior art do not physically detect and record ink in the ink cartridge, but assume that a certain amount of ink has been injected into the ink cartridge through settings of a program. Even if the ink cartridge still has a large amount of ink remaining, a detecting device may still prompt that the ink is exhausted or the ink cartridge needs to be replaced, while the amount of the remaining ink can be upto 30%.
The inventor of the present invention noted that the chip and the memory used in the prior art are integrally disposed on a wall of the ink cartridge. When the ink cartridge is discarded, the chip, the memory and the residual ink are discarded together. Therefore, not only electronic waste is produced, but also chemical waste is produced.
The inventor of the present invention noted that the chip and the memory used in the prior art are integrally disposed on a wall of the ink cartridge. Such a design inevitably results in friction between the chip contacts on the ink cartridge and the chip contacts on the print head. The friction exists both during replacement process of the ink cartridge and during printing process of the printer.
The technical solutions in the prior art have the following common problems: the ink cartridge is for one-time use and a large amount of ink remains after the ink cartridge is discarded, thus indubitably causing environment pollution. The chip contacts on the print head are subjected to wear caused by multiple installation and replacement of the ink cartridge and use processes, so that the working life of the printer, especially the working life of the print head is affected. At the same time, a consumer has to spend a lot of money each time to buy an ink cartridge and a chip attached on the ink cartridge merely accomplishing a virtual detection function in fact. Furthermore, the structure of an ink cartridge in the prior art is too complicated.